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From Part 22:A huge weight had been lifted from him. At last, the terror he'd lived with for so long had gone.
Clark lifted his head from her shoulder and, still holding her, held her gaze with his own. He was surprised to find her eyes shining with the faint shimmer of tears. So she found this as emotional a moment as he did? It surprised and touched him.
"Thank you," he murmured, then leaned forward and touched his lips to hers. A kiss of friendship, deep affection and a gratitude he could never express, he told himself.
Her lips felt soft and inviting. She tasted of mint toothpaste and very faintly of coffee. He struggled to resist deepening the kiss - he had no right to, after all, but even a kiss as light as this was sending his senses into overload.
And then her lips parted, and she kissed him back.
*********
Now read on...Clark was kissing her. Just like she'd imagined so many times - only better. Much better.
How could she have imagined how wonderful it would feel to be held so close to him, pressed against his broad, muscular chest? To be able to feel his heartbeat and the heat of his skin, with only the thin barrier of her nightgown and robe between them?
And even her most heated fantasies had never done justice to the way his lips felt against hers. The way he'd touched her, gently and almost tentatively, making her want so much more with only the lightest of caresses of mouth against mouth. The way a fleeting touch made her want to give him so much more...
A fleeting touch...
With a shock, Lois realised what he'd done. What she was doing. Cringing in embarrassment, she broke the kiss and pulled away.
"Sorry," she muttered, feeling humiliated, hoping that she hadn't ruined their friendship - which had just become even deeper - by her stupidity. By the way she'd kissed back her best friend, who'd only intended to kiss her to say thanks. "I didn't mean... I misunderstood... you didn't want the way I kissed you back - "
Clark refused to release her, keeping hold of her with his hands on her shoulders. His brown eyes, unobscured by glasses, gazed at her with a message she wasn't entirely sure that she understood... but which made her heart want to leap. "Are you kidding, Lois? There's nothing I'd like more!"
"R...really?"
"Really." He smiled at her, then added, in a lazy drawl which set her tingling, "Do I need to prove it to you?"
"But I thought... well, you wouldn't be interested in me, not like that. Not after the way I made such a fool of myself over Superman -"
He interrupted her. "I thought we'd agreed that's ancient history, Lois. But, for the record, I have
always been interested in you that way, right from the moment you barged into my interview."
"Oh." Lois could feel herself blushing as the memory of how she'd dismissed him then as someone of no account whatsoever. But he was right: that was all in the past. They'd started over. Now they were best friends - and maybe more?
She remembered what he'd said a moment or two ago and gave him a challenging grin. "So, what was that you said about proving it to me?"
He laughed, then growled, "Come here." And, as his mouth settled over hers again, she knew without a doubt that he really was interested in her like that. He really was attracted to her, just as she was to him.
Her best friend Clark was becoming her boyfriend Clark - or so she hoped.
When he broke the kiss, several minutes later, she knew. His expression and the way his eyes devoured her told her so. His feelings for her went far beyond friendship.
"Oh, Lois," he sighed, releasing her to place his palm against her cheek. "I don't want to stop. But I think we should, before we - I - get carried away."
He was right, she realised, remembering how they were dressed, or rather, not dressed. And, although she was confident that she loved Clark, she didn't really want to sleep with him this soon, for all sorts of reasons. Mostly that she wasn't ready for that sort of commitment, and she had no idea whether Clark was either. Or what he wanted from her. Though that was hardly surprising. They'd only just had their first kiss, after all.
"Yeah, she agreed, scooting back down the bed a bit, but covering his hand with hers to show that she wasn't withdrawing from him.
"I guess I should let you get back to sleep," he offered, reluctance clear in his voice. "It's late."
Yes, it was late, and he was right: she should go back to bed. So what if she didn't really want to say goodnight just yet? That was just being selfish, no matter how much things had changed between them in the past few minutes. She should let him get some sleep too - more restful sleep this time.
And then she remembered why she was there in the first place - what had woken her. "Clark, you had a nightmare," she pointed out. "What was it about? Do you want to talk about it?"
*********
Did he want to talk about it? Well, he didn't really. He was so frustrated about still having these nightmares weeks after the event. He should be over it by now. If anyone should be having nightmares, it was his parents - they were the ones who'd really been hurt, after all. He'd just had to lie there and watch, and endure interminable questions he didn't have the answers to... and watch his mother being hurt...
He should let Lois go back to bed. It was bad enough that he'd woken her up in the first place, although he couldn't regret that given what had happened. She'd given him a priceless gift. Thanks to her, he didn't have to worry about controlling his powers.
And she'd given him another gift too: her kisses. The fact that she
wanted to kiss him. She'd enjoyed it as much as he had, he could tell. And tomorrow, or as soon as Luthor was behind bars, he was going to do what he'd promised a week or so ago and take her somewhere exotic for dinner. But now it would be as a date.
Yes, he should send her back to bed. But, on the other hand, maybe he owed it to her to explain why he'd woken her up... and if they did talk about it, she'd stay with him for a while longer. He wouldn't have to say goodnight just yet.
So he nodded. "Yeah. If you don't mind, I would."
And then, as she settled herself more comfortably at the foot of his bed, he saw her shiver.
"Lois! You're cold!"
She shrugged. "I'm okay."
He leaned forward and laid his hand on her exposed calf. "No, you're not! You're cold. And I'm a thoughtless idiot for not realising it."
She glanced around. "Do you have a robe I could borrow?"
Impulsively, he said, "I have a better idea." He should just send her to bed. That was most definitely what he should do. They could talk about his dream any time. But he didn't want her to leave.
He wanted... well, what he really wanted was way out of the question. It was far too soon. He hadn't even begun to tell Lois how he really felt about her - he didn’t want to scare her off, for one thing. But he loved her. And that meant that he wanted a lifetime with her, not just one night which she'd probably think afterwards was a mistake.
If he wanted to build a lifetime, it was best to do it one tiny step at a time. They'd taken the first tentative step towards a relationship, and he'd been able to make it clear that he wanted her as more than a friend. That was enough for tonight. For now, though, he really didn't want to say goodnight just yet, even if it was selfish of him.
Scooting over to the far side of the bed, Clark raised the quilt on the side he'd just left. "Come on. If you're sure you don’t mind staying to talk, the least I can do is make sure you're warm enough."
He was about to add reassurance that he wouldn't assume anything if she did get into his bed, but before he could, Lois crawled towards the top of the bed and slid under the quilt. "Thanks - it was getting a little cold out there."
Clark lay on his side, propping his head up on one elbow. "I'm sorry I woke you," he said softly.
"I'm not." She turned on her side, facing him. "If something's upsetting you, I want to help. And I'm really glad we talked - I had no idea you felt that way about touching people."
He grimaced. "Yeah. Makes me feel pretty stupid now."
"You shouldn't," she insisted instantly. "You were traumatised. That kind of thing can really screw a person up. I should know - you know what Claude did to me. And it took me a heck of a lot longer to stop letting what Claude did affect the way I live my life."
That was true, Clark thought. Although he was Superman; he should be holding himself to a higher standard... but then again, that was the kind of thinking which had him tied up in knots over what Trask had done to his parents.
"My nightmare," he said quietly. "It's the same sort of thing I've had ever since Trask."
"All these weeks?" The sympathy in her voice was plain, as was the shock.
"At first it was every couple of nights. Now... not so frequent. Two in the last three days, though."
"You relive what happened?"
"Pretty much," he agreed. "Sometimes it's worse. Or I just relive the worst bits - like seeing his thugs beat up my parents. I always hear him calling me 'alien!' - usually with 'dirty' or 'filthy' attached. Really, that's not the worst," he added quickly, seeing Lois's wince.
"Before you woke up," she said quietly, concern and sympathy for him in her tone, "you shouted that you were an alien, but you weren't a threat."
"I did?" He winced himself, then shook his head. "Well, he kept claiming that I was a threat. That I was the advance guard for an alien invasion. So I guess that bit's stuck in my mind as well. But, really, Lois, that's not the worst of the nightmares. The worst is watching my parents get hurt and knowing that I'm just lying there, not helping them. I'm Superman, Lois!" he exclaimed in disgust. "I lay there and just watched Trask's thugs hurt my parents. They cut Dad. They made Mom cry. And I just lay there and did nothing. Some Superman I am!"
Lois's hand came to lie on his free forearm where it lay on the bed between them. "What could you have done, Clark? What would Trask have done?" she asked quietly, no judgement at all in her tone.
"He had them in a separate room for most of the time," Clark explained. "With two or three thugs with guns standing over them. If I even twitched, one of the thugs would pull at the safety on his gun. I'm fast, Lois, but I'm not that fast - there was no way I could've got to Mom before they'd have killed her." He closed his eyes briefly, the memory of his feeling of sheer impotence painful.
"So you did the only thing you could, Clark," Lois said softly. "You wanted to keep your parents alive. So you did nothing that would antagonise Trask or his thugs."
"Yeah, but what good was that? I knew they'd kill my parents eventually. When Trask got tired of his games, or he decided he'd learned as much as he could from me. Or when he'd discovered a way of killing me."
Lois gave a faint shrug. "You're probably right. But that still doesn't mean that you'd have done anything to precipitate it. Knowing you, Clark, every second you were lying there you were going through all your options and calculating the odds on each of them - over and over. Am I right?"
He let a reluctant smile escape. "Yeah, you're right."
"And you were darned quick to take advantage of the opportunity when I burst in there," she reminded him. "I thought you were dead, you know that? You looked it. And even when you started talking to Trask you sounded... weak, powerless. But before I could even blink you'd overpowered Trask."
"He was distracted," Clark explained. "He knew I was weakened - that's why he'd brought my folks into the same room. With them closer, I was pretty sure that I could take him and get them safe, but I needed him and his thugs to be concentrating on something else, even just for a second. And you were that perfect distraction. As soon as he got his thugs looking at you - remember, he threatened to have them rape you - I knew I had the opportunity I was looking for."
"See?" Lois said, giving him a triumphant grin. "You were thinking straight the entire time. *You* got us all out of there, not me - I was just the distraction."
"You're a pretty wonderful distraction," he murmured, unable to resist gazing at her, admiring her beautiful eyes, her silky hair, everything about her that he loved. "Talented, brave, intelligent, beautiful, fiercely loyal... and very good at making stubborn idiot Superheroes see when they're being stupid," he added ruefully.
She flushed, but that didn't stop her commenting with a grin, "I'm always happy to point out when you're being an idiot; you should know that by now."
"I'm getting the message." He smiled at her in return. "I know I've been obsessing about this. And in my sane moments I know there's nothing else I could've done. I even talked to my parents about it yesterday - you know, when I flew to Smallville to get the furniture for you. And they told me the same thing - that they knew I hadn't been able to do anything sooner, that they were grateful that you and I between us had got us all out of there... that I shouldn't blame myself."
"But you blamed yourself anyway. You couldn't help it," Lois said. "I'm getting to know that about you, Clark - it's part of that compassionate, sensitive guy you are. You can do so much - so many times you've saved the day. But on the rare occasions when you can't help, you blame yourself, don't you? You feel guilty. Even when there's absolutely nothing you could've done." Her hand squeezed his arm. "Clark, you're Superman, not God. You can't help everyone. And sometimes the people you can't help are going to be people you care about."
He nodded. She was right: he did obsess when he wasn't able to save someone, or when he just couldn't get there in time. He did feel guilty. "I can't help it, Lois - I can't pretend it doesn't matter when somebody dies and I could have saved them," he pointed out.
"Of course you can't. That's what makes you human, Clark, and not the kind of cold, emotionless robot Trask tried to claim you were. But you can't feel that kind of pain every time. You can't get too involved - if you do, you'll never be able to carry on as Superman. You'll burn yourself out."
"I know that," he said, agreeing. "I realised that even before I became Superman - there was a mine collapse in South Africa, and I was trying to help without anyone seeing what I was doing. I did my best, but still almost a hundred men died. And I just slunk off into the veldt for a couple of days, brooding... When I came out, I happened to pick up a newspaper and I read about how counselling was being offered to the emergency services workers and the mine rescuers. The article mentioned rescue workers' trauma. And the symptoms pretty much matched what I'd been feeling, so I went to a library and did some reading up on it." He paused, giving a faint shrug. "I'm not saying that I've learned to cope with it yet - I guess that's pretty obvious - but I do know the dangers and I try to be conscious of it."
Lois didn't comment, but she began stroking his arm.
"But it's different when it's someone I love, Lois. My parents, you..." He stopped abruptly, realising what he'd given away.
He did love Lois. But was it too soon to tell her? The last thing he wanted to do was scare her off.
But she didn't look scared. Her expression was nervous, uncertain... hopeful. And it gave him hope too. Maybe it wasn't too soon to tell her.
"Clark..." She swallowed, appearing to have trouble speaking, and her eyes darkened. Her hand on his arm stilled, tightened. "You... love me?"
He lay flat on the bed, freeing both his hands so that he could reach for hers. "You have to know that I love you, Lois," he said softly, allowing his feelings for her to be revealed in his tone.
"As a friend, yeah..." she said slowly. "I mean, we've been so close ever since..."
"Since Trask, yes. And of course I love you as a friend. But that's not what I meant." He squeezed her hands, meeting her uncertain gaze with his, knowing that the way he was looking at her should be leaving her in no doubt of his feelings. "Lois, I love you. I am *in love* with you - and I have been right from the moment we met. And if that scares you... well, okay, but I'm going to do everything I can to show you that it's nothing to be scared of."
She caught her breath. And then said slowly, deliberately, "I'm not scared, Clark."
Joy filled his heart. "You're not?" He smiled at her - couldn’t stop smiling. "In that case... come here."
And he tugged her gently closer to him so that he could kiss her again.
*********
Lois woke slowly, wondering sleepily why she felt so... cocooned. The quilt was over her, true, but she felt as if she was safe in a warm, welcoming embrace. And then she realised - she was in a warm embrace. Clark was holding her.
He'd kissed her last night, after telling her that he loved her. It had been a wonderful kiss, full of love and need and promise. But he hadn't pushed things too far; in fact, he'd broken the kiss long before she'd been ready to end it. He'd hugged her then and said that they'd both better get some sleep. She'd been about to leave his bed to return to her own, but he'd said sleepily that she should stay where she was.
And so she had. And she'd slept incredibly well.
She turned her head to look at the handsome man still sleeping next to her. The handsome man who loved her. After all her efforts to persuade herself that there was no way that Clark could possibly trust her to love him for himself and not what he could do - that there was no way that he'd want to fall in love with her anyway, after the way she'd treated him when they'd first met - miraculously, he did love her. Had loved her right from the start.
She was so glad that he'd had that nightmare last night. If it hadn't been for that, they would never have talked, and she wouldn't have found out why he hated to touch people. It was just awful to think that he'd denied himself the comfort of touch for so long, unable to reach out to those he loved for fear that he would injure them, or worse. Yet another crime to lay at Jason Trask's door.
But he was over that now, or so she hoped. At any rate, he'd shown her last night that he wasn't worried about touching her any more.
Clark's eyes fluttered open; for a moment he looked disoriented, but then he smiled at her. "Goo' morning, Lois," he mumbled, clearly not fully awake yet.
"Morning, Clark." Feeling unaccountably shy all of a sudden, she added, "I'll just go and let you get up, okay?"
"What's your rush?" He shifted, seeming much more alert suddenly. Then he gave her a lazy smile. "You haven't kissed me good morning yet."
Well, that wouldn't be difficult to remedy. She leaned closer, feeling his arms tighten around her at the same time, and met his lips with her own. It was a sweet, brief kiss, but still had enough power to leave her breathless. And, no, he had no problem with touching her now, she was very pleased to see.
"Wow! I could get used to waking up like that!" Lois exclaimed as Clark moved away.
"Well, that could be arranged." He grinned at her. "Just say the word - I'll bring you coffee and kisses every morning from now on if you like."
"Kisses
and coffee?" She grinned back. "You do know how to spoil a girl."
"When it's the woman I love, nothing could be too much."
Lois studied his face; no glasses this morning, of course, and his hair was dishevelled from sleep. He looked younger, more carefree and, with the affectionate expression in his eyes as he looked back at her, very happy. And suddenly she realised what she had yet to say to him.
"I love you too, Clark."
The smile on his face widened still further. "I was hoping," he confessed. "But even if you didn't, after last night I figured I had enough to work with - and I was going to do everything in my power to make you fall in love with me."
That might have been interesting to see, Lois thought. Rather than waste words, though, she just leaned over and kissed Clark again. He didn’t seem to object.
*********
...tbc
